


If Ever There Is Tomorrow

by spensierata



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Childhood Sweethearts, F/M, Fluff, High School, Non-Linear Narrative, Spoilers for all seasons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 07:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12249429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spensierata/pseuds/spensierata
Summary: The third time they meet is the least bloody, yet opens more wounds. It comes, like the times before, suddenly and without warning.An AU in which Mulder and Scully meet three times over the course of their lives; told in a series of vignettes.





	1. As Time Goes By

**Spring, 1993**

The end of the 20th century is only the beginning. Change hits the nineties at a breakneck speed; Hair is getting bigger, technology is getting smaller, colors are getting brighter while the climate begins to suffer, but in the midst of a new era, some old skeletons are about to be unearthed. The third time they meet is the least bloody, yet opens more wounds. It comes, like the times before, suddenly and without warning.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Mulder had been given plenty of warning when Skinner had informed him he was being assigned a partner; A scientist who was to, no doubt, disprove his work and report back to the kind of men he was fighting. To keep him in line and keep him from going overboard. This hadn’t come as a surprise, he always knew the closer he got to the truth, the more curveballs they would throw his way. What made him almost fall out of his chair was the name, _Dana Scully_.

A name he couldn’t claim had never crossed his mind.

Dana Scully haunted him like an intrusive thought or the vague memory of a strange fever dream. She reminded him of a time he would much rather forget, yet the feeling lingered; the possibility that maybe one day, their paths might cross again. When he'd heard that she’d enlisted he found himself needlessly frequenting Quantico in the hope and the dread of catching a flash of ginger hair. Her thesis was printed and dog-eared the moment it was published; because challenging one of the greatest minds the world has ever known was something so quintessentially Dana Scully, and he was ever the masochist.

His hopes were not high; he didn’t expect her to accept this assignment, and he certainly didn’t suppose she would darken his basement door that very same day, but suddenly, here she is, smiling down on him from the high road.

“Agent Mulder,” she says quietly, with an air of disbelief, “I’ve been assigned to work with you,”

They shake hands like strangers, his fingers burn at her touch; the sensation lingers even after her hand falls away. She had always run as warm as her complexion, His summer girl had become fall. Her hair is darker, neatly tamed. She teeters precariously on heels that give her precious extra inches, that demand he looks her in the eye. Her ill-fitting tweed suit hangs awkwardly on her slender frame; the whole ensemble reminds him of a child playing make-believe. Hidden is her rebellious heart under sensible attire and a polite smile; the heart he knows he broke, and one he refuses to break again.

So he puts down his slides and puts up his guard.

“Isn’t it nice to be so highly regarded? So who’d you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?”

For a moment she’s stunned, then the next she recovers, “Actually, I’m looking forward to working with you,” she tells him.

He responds with a bitter smile, “Oh really? I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me.”

A fire sparks behind her eyes, she looks as if she was about to retort before he cuts her off. “I’m surprised you didn’t object to your placement, Scully, what with our tempestuous history,”

She hesitates, he hates that she hesitates, hates that he makes her hesitate. “I can’t say I wasn’t caught off guard,” she admits, “Though I knew it was a possibility we would run into each other when I started working at the Bureau…”

“Yes, this is interesting happenstance isn’t it, _Doctor_?” She tenses, Mulder stands and brushes past her in order to miss her patented Scully glare.

“If you’re suggesting that _you_ played any part in any decision concerning my career…”

“I’m not suggesting anything, I just always supposed you’d be headed towards a Nobel prize by now, yet here you are wasting your talents in the basement with me,”

Scully blinks and tilts her pointed chin, “You think I’m wasting my talents here, Mulder?” 

“It’s just that in most of my work, the laws of physics rarely seem to apply,” he shrugs and hits the lights. In the unearthly glow of his projector, Scully looks like a ghost.

He shows her the dead kids, barely older than they had been, once upon a time. He tells her his theories, she rebukes them with a smirk, slowly the ice begins to thaw and a familiar feeling begins to take root.

Then she leaves, and the basement feels darker and emptier than it ever had before. So Scully was back in his life and maybe, plausibly, this time she would stay. Mulder locks the office door behind him that evening and whistles the whole way home.

 

**Fall, 1978**

September in Connecticut, 1978 is record-breaking. The air as thick and hot as soup, her stiff collared shirt clings to her skin and dampens at the base of her neck. She wipes away the sweat beading on her forehead with the end of her ugly striped green tie and ignores the disapproving look her mother gives her.

Dana had always marvelled at how the air was always different in every new place they landed, she secretly ranked them from the icy unforgiving winds of the Scottish moors to the serene and exotic air of Japan. Greenwich so far was not doing too well on this list, however, it looked like she was going to have to get used to it. She had long since gotten used to the routine of neatly packing up her life in matching suitcases and burying a lunchbox in the backyard.

Melissa left a trail of broken hearts behind them like push pins in a map. Her sister had always been better at making friends, she claimed it had something to do with her aura, Dana wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, only that hers was probably broken. Usually, by the time she had started warming to people, her father would sit the four of them on the couch and tell them it was time to start saying goodbyes, so Dana eventually stopped trying to find people to say goodbye to.

She had her friends, they were called Mom, Ahab, Missy and Charlie. Sometimes Bill, when he wasn’t being a pain in the A Double-S. They were all she really needed. When she was very young, she even had an imaginary friend called Lucy, who took the form of a red squirrel. Lucy would curl up behind her hair and whispered secrets in her ear. Dana liked the fact that nobody else could see her, that she was hers and hers alone.

Sometimes she would pen a letter to the boy who had forgotten her, only to burn it in the bathtub with her mother’s lighter.

But still, her Mom always tried. She heard her arguing sometimes with her father that it wasn’t good for them, that kids needed stability. It looked like this year she had finally won the war and a house was bought, not rented.

She shifts uncomfortably as her bare thighs stick to the Principals rigid leather seats. The Principal in question was a tall British woman with large teeth, a sensible mousey bob and a collection of motivational animal posters. Dana catches the eye of a mournful kitten hanging from a curtain, encouraging her to _Hang In There!_ and somehow feels even less optimistic.

“Now Diana, a little birdy told me that you’re _especially_ talented at  _Science_ is that right, dear?” She smiles in a condescending way that makes Scully bristle. Bill snickers to her right, Missy kicks him in the shin on her behalf.

“It’s Dana, Ms Paterson,” Her mother corrects her patiently.

“Oh, my apologies _Dana.”_

Dana represses the urge to roll her eyes, instead, begins to fiddle with the brand new chain around her neck. Naturally she was the last of the three to be enrolled, but unfortunately for her, also the one the school was most interested in.

“As I was saying, it seems you are just the _model_ student, and if you don’t mind the extra work, we might be able to sign you up to the tutoring scheme, we have a nice young man who is in need of a _little_ extra help in physics,”

Maggie nods encouragingly at her, clearly ecstatic at the prospect of her troubled young daughter making a friend. Dana tries feebly to muster her mothers’ enthusiasm,

“Sure, Miss, sounds… neat,”

“ _Wonderful_ ,” she croons, “I hope you don’t mind, but I already took the pleasure of asking Fox to come by the office, so you could get to know each other,”

Dana’s hand stilled at the base of her throat, she felt her mother stiffen beside her, and her siblings’ squabbles fall silent. No. It couldn’t be that uncommon a name. “Fox?” she falters.

“Yes, quite an odd name isn’t it? He’s truly _lovely_ boy, very very bright, but unfortunately, he had to be held back a year…” Ms Paterson yammers on, but Dana had long since stopped hearing her words, as a minute later he appeared.

He was taller and lanky, the skin on his cheeks textured and he was in dire need of a haircut, but he was undoubtedly the same wide-eyed boy who had been her first real friend. And with wide eyes, he stares at her from the doorway, as if he couldn’t believe them himself.

_“Scully?”_

Framed by a halo of light from the hall, the image of him becomes blurred by the tears which spring to her eyes. Her chair falls backwards with a heavy thud as shoots to her feet. She mutters an apology to the baffled headmistress before she hurries from the room.

“Scully,” Mulder pleads, catching her hand as she darts past and clutches it tight. Electricity floods her veins. She looks into those familiar hazel eyes and pauses only a moment before she pulls her hand away and runs.

 

**Summer, 1969**

The summer of ‘69 is worthy of its song. Rock and Roll is at its peak, a man walks on the moon, and somewhere in New England, a lonely little boy meets a lonely little girl.

With a startled wail and a resounding thump, she falls out of a tree into his yard and into his life.

The day until that moment had been dull and unremarkable. Having escaped captivity and found refuge in his favourite spot, under a tall oak tree overlooking the tranquil sea; Fox William Mulder, seven and three quarters, jumps with a start and stares at the heap of limbs and hand me downs, as it groans then starts to giggle.

“Are you okay?” he asks, as his initial shock subsides.

“Yeah, yeah,” it says, “I’m fine,”

Dana Katherine Scully, six and a half, sits up to brush off the worst of the debris but lets out a sharp gasp as a lightning bolt of pain shoots through her wrist. However, being the tough cookie she was having grown up playing rough with William Scully Jr, the sprain was not enough to make her cry.

“You don’t look okay; you’re bleeding,” Mulder observes. She touches a hand to her mouth which sure enough, comes away red. Between them on the crisply trimmed grass lies a pearly white tooth. The ruffled girl picks it up and studies it curiously, tonguing the fresh gap in her gums, then tucks it into the pocket of her overalls.

“I guess you’re gonna see the tooth fairy,” he lisps, gesturing to his own missing front teeth. Her freckles dance as she wrinkles her nose.

“The tooth fairy isn’t real,” she replies, spitting scarlet on the ground and wiping her mouth on her arm, staining her skin like war paint.

“Is too, and so is Santa Claus,”

He offers a hand to help her to her feet, which she takes with a bloody, gap-toothed grin. This girl was brand new, he knew every fresh face in this small seaside town, and not one of them had ever smiled at him like that before. She’s all skinned elbows and scabby knees. She looks like she was spat out by the sun, with a fiery rat’s nest of auburn hair and a mischievous gleam in her bright blue eyes. He feels like Isaac Newton, hit on the head with the discovery of the century.

“You’re not from around here are you?” he asks.

She shakes her head, “No, we just moved here this week. My Dad’s gone to sea, I was trying to see his boat from up there when I slipped,” She replies, gesturing to the web of twisted branches above their heads.

“He’s a pirate?” he jokes; she quirks a little brow.

“ _No_. He’s a Captain,”

“Captain Hook?”

Fox Mulder is still at the age where girls are kind of gross, but the sincerity with which this pretty tomboy laughs makes his ears turn red regardless. She was like a breath of fresh air after spending the whole day trapped inside a stuffy room, which incidentally he had.

“Fox,” he blurts at her, suddenly losing his cool.

“What did you call me?” she replies hotly, her un-injured hand flying self-consciously to her mussed red hair.

“No! my name is – “

“ _Fox!_ ” They jump at the booming disembodied voice calling from the house a few meters away, “What in the hell are you doing?”

“Crap,” he mutters. Scully can’t help but flinch at the use of the word which would have cost her her dessert. “I’m supposed to be grounded, I think I’d better go,”

She tries not to be disappointed, but finds herself reluctant to say goodbye to this curious boy with a strange sense of humor, who believes in myths and fairy tales; but he makes no move to leave, equally unwilling to say goodbye to the girl who dresses like a boy and smells like the sea, who climbs trees and doesn’t cry when she falls. They eye each other hesitantly until finally, she breaks the silence.

“Your name is Fox?” she asks.

He makes a face, “Yeah, but I hate it. I like my last name better. It’s Mulder,”

“Mulder,” she tries it on her tongue and decides she likes the taste. She straightens her back and offers her hand like she’s seen adults do a thousand times before. “Ok. Nice to meet you, Mulder, my name's Dana, but I guess you can call me Scully,”

“Scully,” he beams and takes her tiny, dirty hand in his. They shake in childish ignorance to how their stars had just aligned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might notice I rearranged some dates and tweaked Scully's age. This was to make the story make more sense, but I'm not going to make a habit of exercising my creative license... I mean, beyond making Mulder and Scully grow up together. But not even canon is canon compliant most of the time.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading. This fic is my baby, and I hope you enjoyed it.


	2. Where The Wild Things Are

 

**Fall 1971**

The once green leaves have fallen and turned to rust. They rustle softly in the breeze, accompanying a symphony of cicadas as they mourn the end of summer. Mulder is ten years old today, and in typical Mulder fashion, had decided the only just way to celebrate hitting double digits was a trip to the gloomy forest. Dusk seeps in like the tide; Home-time has long since passed, but Mulder has a flashlight and a story to tell.

“Once,” he begins, voice dramatically hushed. Perched on the rotting trunk of a fallen tree, his young audience leans in, eager to catch his words. “In these very woods, lived a very old, very bad man. He lived in the very tops of the trees and from up there he could the whole world. He lived on rats and owls and, occasionally, lost little girls,”

The mid-October wind picks up forcefully, a chilling wail punctuating his words, the small group shivers and huddles ever closer. “One day there was this girl, she was nearly seven years old and had long brown hair, her parents were worried, because she went away one night and never came home, so they went looking in these woods all night, but when they finally found her she was dead, in a nest of bones on the top of the highest tree and the man had chewed her face right off…”

“Stop it, Fox! You’re scaring Samantha,”

Samantha had grown visibly pale. Scully, snapped out of her trance, puts a comforting arm around her, “Don’t worry,” she whispers in the other girl’s ear, “It’s only pretend,”

Mulder’s inner circle consisted of his sister, his best friend, and his best friend’s sister, who though quite fond of Mulder was even fonder of Samantha, with her braid-able hair and a mutual love for Barbie dolls which Dana, despite her greatest efforts, had never come to share. So it comes as no surprise when Melissa jumps to her defence.

“I think I’ll take her home, Danes,” she tells them, rising to her feet and dusting off her floral skirt.

“Aw, c’mon Missy, don’t be a killjoy,” Scully groans, but Samantha stands and throws her an apologetic smile, “It’s okay Dana, I’m kinda tired anyway,”

“Don’t stay out too late or mom will freak,” Melissa says with the proud authority only an older sibling could possess, before tugging the younger girl gently behind her, until the warm glow of her lantern fades into the distance and plunges the forest into black once again.

“Well, what do we do now?” Scully huffs. “Have I told you the one about the Jersey Devil, Scully?”

She rolls her eyes towards the moon. “Only like a billion times,”

“How about hide and seek?” he concedes, “Or are you afraid of the bad man too?”

They glance up at the twisted treetops concealing the glittering night, no monster in sight. “I’ll play with you, Mulder,” Scully smirks and quickly turns, “But you have to find me first!” she calls behind her as she darts off through the trees.

Mulder shuts his eyes and counts to ten.

**Fall 1978**

Dana hovers nervously on the fringe of the cafeteria, a plastic tray filled with questionable mac and cheese and neon green Jell-O held in an iron grip, for which she is quickly losing her appetite. This is the part she despises. catching people’s eyes, pretending to be interested, to be interesting, trying in vain to explain where she came from; everywhere and nowhere. She hates feigning a confidence which she so desperately lacked.

Dana’s tendency to overthink was new and overpowering. Somewhere along the way, in some school locker room or some sleepover where she was just a pity invite, she had lost the invulnerability of childhood, and let insecurity seep under her skin with every whisper and sideways glance, at every failed attempt to infiltrate friendships which had already been forged in the fires of early adolescence.

Her code-breaking docs squeak on the linoleum floor, she is painfully aware that she’s beginning to attract attention. She feels too small and too large all at once, somehow taking up too much space, yet not nearly enough.

That’s when she feels the hand on her back.

“Scully,” he all but whispers, “Can we talk?”

She trips over air as she recoils. Macaroni becomes airborne, half the room turns to stare. Dana’s face matches the ketchup splattered on the floor. “I don’t have anything to say to you,” She seethes. She had been avoiding him like the plague since she ran out of the principal’s office, thinking she’d be doing them both a favor by avoiding confrontation.

“Scully, I’m sorry, I just…” Mulder stammers, his gaze intense, mournful, nervous. What right did he have to be nervous? Anger overrides anxiety as years of dormant resentment bubbles to the surface and erupts like a volcano.

“Don’t call me that. You have  _no right_  to call me that, you can’t talk to me as if you know me, like we’re still  _friends_. Friends write, Mulder! Friends talk to each other, friends acknowledge each other's existence! I don’t care what you have to say, it’s too late for this, Mulder, I don’t want to talk to you or Samantha or  _anyone_ …”

She’s cut off by someone grabbing her wrist, pulling her roughly away from Mulder’s wounded expression, from the hundreds of eyes trained on the scene before them and into the girl’s dingy bathroom.

“Missy, I was handling it,”

“You weren’t handling  _shit_ , Dana.  _Fuck_.” Her sister curses as she bolts the door and cracks open the window. “Why did you have to go and make a scene? It’s been hard enough on him already,”

Dana catches sight of herself in the mirror and quickly looks away. She already hates her features, they’re worse when twisted with rage. “Hard enough on him? What the fuck, Missy, who’s side are you on?”

Melissa sighs and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, putting one shakily to her mouth, “I knew I should have just told you,”

Dana is momentarily stunned. Her mom had made them promise that they would never smoke when her grandfather passed away, after years of sucking on cigars turned his blackened lungs to ash. She’d already broken that promise several times, but she hadn’t thought that her sister ever would, and for some reason, this fills her with unease.

“Told me what?” Her fingers fumble to strike the match, but she finally sparks a flame. After a long moment of silence, she speaks. “Dad made me swear not to tell you” Smoke billows from her lips, curling and dancing under the fluorescent light, poisoning the air with her poison words. “Samantha was taken, Dana. She was kidnapped, I guess, a few months after we left Massachusetts,”

The walls constrict and the world turns on its side. All Dana could focus on was the tears trailing down her sister’s cheeks, leaving track marks in her rouge, as the things she was telling her registered in her brain. “I guess they thought… How do you even explain that shit to an eight-year-old? What if we had stayed a bit longer? you practically lived there and…”

Dana remembers how to breathe around the same time she remembers how to speak. Oxygen feels like fire in her lungs, her fury burns in her throat. “And what?” she rasps, “ _What?_  you think it could have been me?”

“Dana, don’t…” her sister pleads.

“How could you even think to keep something like that from me? She was my friend too, Missy. Mulder was my friend and…”

Mulder.  _Shit._

Dana bursts out of the bathroom, throughout the crowded dining hall, conversations stall. Mulder is already gone.

**Fall 1993**

As a child, Scully had a recurring dream of being stuck in a museum overnight, the exhibits would come alive and start to speak. The Smithsonian at this moment was dead, as she stares at the Neanderthals behind the darkened glass, Darwin’s apes learning to walk, she wonders what they would say.

Nature had never come naturally to her. While it felt like practically all her friends were getting married, getting pregnant, getting mortgages, all she was getting was older. And then there’s Mulder.

She feels his lingering presence long before his reflection appears the glass.

“You always did have a knack for running away,” his voice echoes throughout the empty room, life amongst the ruins of the ancient and extinct.

“You’re one to talk, Mulder,” she bites back, feels him flinch, and immediately wants to stuff the words back in her mouth

“I didn’t mean…”

“I know what you meant,”

This was something they were still getting used to. Their dynamic was all new, yet all too familiar, a battle of wits in an instant turn into a hesitant dance. They compliment and contradict each other to the point that it was maddening. There had always been something about this man, and the boy he used to be, which sparked an insatiable curiosity, a hunger for the extraordinary, one that could never be satisfied by homily divorcees or besotted superiors to her eternal frustration.

“Are you going to let me look at that?” she softly breaks the silence, nodding to the fresh wound on Mulder’s ribs, which he was gingerly palming through his blazer.

“You just wanna see me with my shirt off,” he grunts, “You shouldn’t abuse your medical license for personal reasons, Scully,”

“It only seems fair after Bellefleur,” She allows her self a smirk

“You have some recently un-repressed memories you want to discuss?” He laughs humorlessly, their banter turning dry as it comes back to Samantha, as it would always come back to Samantha. Scully remembers listening to his regression tapes, seeing her picture in that file, how her heart hit the floor. The doe-eyed girl in a nightdress, the girl who had cried when other kids scraped their knees or stepped on ants. Scully can see the Samantha-shaped hole her absence left behind his eyes, and she can’t blame him at all. She gives up the attempt to lighten the mood and cuts to the chase.

“I know you believe she’s out there Mulder, I want to believe she’s alright too, but..." she chooses her words carefully, "But I don’t want to see you keep getting hurt,”

The silence is deafening, she starts to think that the wax figures might break the silence before Mulder does, but then he hooks his fingers gently around hers and anchoring her gaze to his. “I just… need to find out, Scully,” he murmurs, “Even if that means doing it on my own,”

Scully studies Darwin’s early men and thinks of how far they’ve evolved, how far they still have to go. Maybe subconsciously she feels she owes it to the girl she once was or the girl she once knew, but she feels herself being drawn in deeper down the rabbit hole, drawn back to him. She takes a deep breath and squeezes his hand, answering his unspoken question.

“You won't be alone,”


	3. A Sailor Went To Sea

**Summer 1960**

Mulligan’s Pub is as greasy and Irish as it’s regulars. It happens to be the only bar open at 10 am on a Sunday and with his sailor’s uniform and bright orange hair, Bill Scully did not look out of place as he drops a quarter into the coin slot and flicks through the jukebox. Margret waits for him dutifully, sipping ginger ale and fanning away the heat with a coaster. Maggie doesn’t dance, she wouldn’t take his hand unless the song is perfect. The grin he shoots over his shoulder is smug, she arches her brow and tilts her head expectantly. A challenge, a dare, a _show me what you’ve got._ He shows her, and presses play.

_Somewhere beyond the sea_

_Somewhere waiting’ for me_  
_My lover stands on golden sands_  
_And watches the ships that go sailing…_

Something old, his grandmother’s ring. He’d kept it in his pocket for six months while he’d been out at sea. Katherine Scully had died at 83, a few days before he was to leave. She’d always liked that Margret, she had told him the last time they spoke as she pressed the warm golden band into his palm. The diamond was made of glass, but it gleamed like the beacon of a lighthouse on her finger, calling him back to their sticky table in the seedy, smoke-filled pub, calling him home. He crosses the room in far too many steps, tugs her gently out of her chair and into his arms, she tosses her head back as she laughs and he falls in love all over again.

 _…Somewhere beyond the sea_  
_She's there watchin’ for me_  
_If I could fly like birds on high_  
_Then straight to her_ arms _, I'd go sailing…_

Something blue, her sapphire eyes. He’d fallen in love with them first, when he’d caught them as she sang in the church choir, she couldn’t carry a tune but sang the loudest all the same, she’d winked at him and he was done for. Every time he looked out on the ship’s deck, he was reminded of her. They had been wet and blue as the ocean as she stood waiting on the docks, searching the chaos of loved ones finding loved ones that misty morning. The first thing he did after setting foot on dry land was kiss her, the second was go down on one knee, the third was laugh through his tears as she’d tugged him up by the collar and told him _“I’m not waiting a single second longer, sailor,”_

“They had our song!” she beams; he pulls her ever closer, singing along softly in her ear, smirking as he feels the shiver run down her spine like a trickle of water.

 _…It's far beyond a star_  
_It's near beyond the moon_  
_I know beyond a doubt_  
_My heart will lead me there soon…_

Something borrowed, her mother's wedding dress, ivory lace. They’d practically ran to the courthouse, stopping only at her insistence, that at least _something_ be done traditionally. They stole some roses from the garden and struggled to squeeze her into the dress, as modest and billowy as it was, it was still a tight fit. “Maggie, are you sure...?” he started to ask for the hundredth time, but she cut him off with a kiss.

“My parents were so incredibly _angry;_ you have no idea.” She told him between painting her lips a heart-breaking shade of red and pinning a single white flower in her dark ebony curls. “I’m doing you a favour, buddy,”

Her parents were at mass, no doubt wondering where in hell their sinful young family shame could be. His arms had circled her waist, his fingers interlaced with hers and settle on her stomach. 

Something new, so new it was still in the works. Six months, yet she was barely showing. Pressed against him as they dance; he feels his son kick. Bill, just once, wishes time could stand still, that he could live in this little vignette forever, but he knows that someday soon he’ll have to go back out to sea, and the song is quickly coming to an end.

“So what now?” his wife sighs against his neck,

“What now?” He echoes, brushing an errant curl behind her ear. He lets his fingers trail lazily along her jaw and tilts her chin to meet his gaze. She hasn’t stopped blushing since she’d said _I do_.

“How about the rest of our lives?” he grins and spins her one more time.

 _…We'll meet beyond the shore_  
_We'll kiss just like before_  
_Happy we'll be beyond the sea_  
_And never again I'll go sailing…_

 

**Spring 1980**

 

Bill Scully Sr. could mark the day he’d started going grey, it was around the same time his youngest daughter had dyed the ends of her hair pink and gotten taken in for trespassing on prom night.

He rubbed the fatigue from his eyes as he pulled up at the Sherriff station at an ungodly hour. Dana was a smart teenager, smart enough to not run away but teenager enough to sneak into an abandoned property to go ghost hunting in the first place. She was with the Mulder kid. Of course she was. 

It turns out the kids didn’t have to look that far, as in the darkened parking lot he finds a relentless spirit had come back to haunt him. Teena Mulder had not aged well, but he could hardly blame her. Her hair was more white than brown, the lines under her eyes were far too defined for someone her age. The woman he once knew had once been plucky and hopeful, but her expression now lacks any softness, he feels the swing coming and braces himself for the blow.

“They got themselves arrested,” she says in a tone as cool and cutting as a shard of ice.

 “Oh, really?” he replies wearily, “Shit, it’s a good thing I always happen stop by the police station at four in the morning,”

 “This is serious, Bill,” she frowns, and takes him back to 1973. 

“They’re getting let off with a warning, Teena. They were stupid, but don’t make this into a bigger deal than it already is,”

 “This is dicey and you know it,” she tears into a packet of cigarettes with her teeth, “I’m scared for them. I’m scared they’ll get each other hurt,” 

He sighs and rubs a hand over his forehead as if to soothe the pain that was ever growing in his temporal lobe, the putrid smell of smoke reminds him too much of days filled with shadowy parties and shady military men; in that moment he misses the salty sea air so much he feels sick.

 “You want what’s best for them Teena? How about letting them be happy,” he says, because dammit they _were_ happy. He’s never seen her daughter happier than after the boy came back into her life, he wasn’t strong enough to deal with the kind of heartbreak splitting them up would cause, the kind even a father’s love couldn’t soothe. “I won’t hurt her like that again,”

“It’s all fun and games _now_ , but Fox is starting to get ideas about his sister, sooner or later Dana will get them too, you really want to take that risk?” Bill’s life was already full to the brim with small, forceful women, but none of them had ever quite infuriated him like this one. “Sometimes hurting someone is the best way to save them,” 

“Is that how you justify what happened to Samantha?” The darkness had stained her green eyes black, they glimmer with unshed tears and he curses his big mouth. “No, I’m sorry… Look, I’m truly sorry about what your family went through Teena, but I’m never going to let it happen to mine.”

“This is bigger than you or I, Bill, it won’t end with us,” She shakes her head, her smile is bitter, mournful, grave, “Nobody lives forever, if you’re lucky you’ll die before your children, but after the fact, you can’t protect them,”

“Well then maybe you should quit smoking,” he replies and says a quick prayer for the boy as he storms into the building. 

Her simple velvet gown is rumpled and bunched up to her knees as she rests her ratty white sneakers on her best friend’s lap, as what lingered of her inner tomboy had refused to wear heels. Their heads conspiringly close like they were the only two in the room. Mulder must have said something funny, as her laugh rings out like a bell throughout the bullpen. Bill’s anger gives way to pure adoration, and it pains him even more.

“A séance, Dana?” he says gruffly, alerting them to his presence, “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts,”

The teenagers quickly spring apart and have the good sense to look embarrassed.

“Sir, I’m so sorry this was all my fault, honest…” Mulder starts. 

“Shut up Mulder, you didn’t twist my arm,” Dana cuts him off. 

He shoots the boy a look so stern it would have had his quivering in their lifejackets, and he wisely shut his mouth. His well-trained daughter marches up to him, front and centre with her head held high, “I’m sorry, Captain,” she says, the apology is guarded, but she clearly means it.

 Bill surprises them all by pulling her into a tight embrace.

“Daddy?” her voice small and muffled against his chest, “You’re not mad?” 

“I’m furious, Starbuck,” he pulls away, keeping his hands firmly on her little shoulders, God she was still so little, her look so tender. She’d always known exactly how to wind him around her finger. “You are in a world of trouble. But right now all I just want is to get you home,”

Dana falls asleep against the passenger window on the ride home, and he tries not to look at her and think about his old friend’s warning. She was _his_ daughter; she was his _miracle._ But sooner or later, the God’s he had prayed to would come collect their debts.

**Winter 1994**

 

Children rebel, they disappoint. They keep secrets and talk back. They run away from home and never call except for birthdays. Ahab had been like any other parent; always wanting what was best for his kids, but his kids had other plans. Dana had raged against the machine the hardest, and did the most damage to his bank account, throwing away her medical degree to cut up corpses for the FBI. They’d each ranted and bickered and slammed doors until Scully had paid for the training herself and had lived off toast and canned soup for a year, until Maggie had reached the end of her rope, pouring water over the coals and talking the heated redheads to just _agree to disagree._  

Her work was put permanently on the backburner, the two of them avoided touching the subject like a tender wound. He awkwardly brings it up after the last at the last dinner they would ever share, and she should have taken that opportunity to tell him about Mulder, but the gesture feels hollow. If telling him about the bureau had been hard, telling about Mulder would have near impossible, so she just… never did.

It was just a passing moment, but the lost opportunity was gnawing at her. It was far too late, the black and white images on the TV blurring into grey. She decides she’ll call and tell him first thing in the morning, as she gives into her exhaustion and falls headfirst into a dream. 

It's so familiar it feels almost like a memory. She wanders down the endless white hall, tiled floor cold against her tiny bare feet. She hears someone shout behind her, booming footfalls gaining speed. They never catch her; she always wakes before they do. She tries to run all the same, but her legs are made of lead, this time she makes it to the corner and runs into a girl. A girl with long brown hair and terror in her bright green eyes, Hands grab her from all sides, and she wills her eyes to open.

Without warning, the walls start to twist and convulse before disappearing entirely. Suddenly she’s thirteen and her Sunday school teacher is dead in her yard. She’ kneeling beside him covered head to toe in sticky black blood, screaming.

 _Scout_ said the corpse, his blue lips part and flies swarm out, _He’s going to be ok_

His lifeless eyes bore into her soul, but she can’t look away as the dead man begins to sing.

_…Happy we’ll be beyond the sea_

_And never again I’ll go sailing…_

The scene changes once more in a lightning flash, the earth is covered in white. Her teacher is gone, and Ahab is there instead, standing at the end of the garden, staring at the butter-yellow flowers pushing through the snow. She approaches carefully, but he doesn’t look up _. Daffodil’s don’t grow in winter_ He mutters to the ground, _They’re going to die_

“Dad?” He turns like a broken animatronic, his eyes empty and glazed, but somewhere deep inside flickered a spark of recognition, and his face crumples.

 _I’m sorry, Starbuck,_ he rasps, like the words physically pain him _, I’m so sorry…_

“Daddy, you’re scaring me…” she places a hand on his arm, but pulls it away quickly with a gasp; he was as cold as ice, tears turning to frost on his cheeks. The sight is so profoundly wrong that it stops her in her tracks. In all her life, she’d never seen her daddy cry. Before she can reach out again the wind begins to swirl as harshly as a hurricane, turning him to snowflakes and blowing him away. 

Scully never knew when she was having a nightmare until she was awake. Until it was too late. Until it wasn’t a dream anymore. 

She wakes with a song in her head, opens her eyes and sees her father. 

She sees him for the last time.

_…No more, no more,  
No more sailing…_


End file.
